At the Height
by Ziggy Sternenstaub
Summary: Darth Vader and Darth Sidious inspect the Jedi Temple after its destruction. Some general, low-key slashiness ensues.


This story needs a bit of an explanation before being read, I think. For one, it's practically an archaeological artifact. I actually wrote this story nine years ago, directly after TPM came out-- or possibly even before it, based on internet rumours. I'd been an Ani/Palpy shipper for years already, based on three lines in the ROTJ novelisation, ha ha, so this wasn't a huge leap for me-- but it does mean that I was fifteen when I wrote this fic; so, while I've cleaned up the grammar and such, it can be a bit awkward in spots.

For reasons of time period, it's a bit vague and not quite canon, though only in a very vague way.

Also, I posted this under a different name on one or two SW sites, many years ago, so...please don't accuse me of stealing my own story. Kthanx.

Disclaimer: Don't belong to me.

Comments would be wonderful:D

**At the Height**

by Ziggy Sternenstaub

The destruction was shot through with shards of the reflective substance which had been the outer surface of the building. Under Coruscant's mirrors, the Jedi Temple had once gleamed like a star-- now it was shattered like a broken dream.

Two men wandered silently through the ruins.

Darth Sidious observed charred flesh and other scrapes of once-sentient remains with softly savoured pleasure.

"It will be dangerous to ascend to the next level," noted the younger man, Darth Vader. His voice was calm and technical as he offered a fact as a fact, not as a protest.

"I know," Vader's Sith Master said in clipped tones, his determination clear. They had come this far. They would go the rest of the way.

The Sith avoided the lifts, knowing that power within the building no longer functioned, shattered much like the power of its once revered inhabitants. Instead, they made their way to the emergency stairs. They heard the faintest hiss of released air as Sidious, walking slightly in front of Vader, pulled open the charred door to the stairway.

The two men stepped into the oppressive darkness of the stairwell. It was not rich and bountiful darkness as the Dark Side of the Force was, but one filled with the stale, ominous odour of the grave. The Sith mounted the steps, hearing the faint whisper of Sidious's robes rustling against the stone, and the hard-soled clicking of Vader's boots following after. The higher they went, the greater the pressure against them became. It was not the pressure of air, but seemed to radiate from the stone itself, urging them back down to the last level, insisting that they were not wanted.

To refuse a Sith is but to see his determination grow, thought Sidious. So it has ever been. The Jedi thought to destroy us, and now the Jedi are the ones destroyed. The Sith Master smiled as they completed another winding spiral. He owned the Jedi's precious Balance now, and Balance wasn't quite what the good Knights had imagined.

Sidious took the final step, carefully placed both feet on the cracked landing, and taking a deep breath as he pulled the lingering despair, sorrow, fear, rage, and yes, even hatred, into himself. The sheer delight of such intense negative emotions having been spawned by Jedi Knights sent chills of intoxication down Sidious's spine. His lips parted and his eyes glowed. Stretching out a hand from the enveloping confines of his richly coloured robes, he ran his fingers along the polished stone of the hallway's wall. Trailing his fingers, he felt his way, like a blind man, towards the door of the Jedi Council chamber, the heart of the Jedi Temple.

A fleeting vision bloomed before Sidious: a woman in Jedi robes, screaming as she tumbled to the floor with blood running down her neck. Transferring his gaze to the stone in front of him, the Sith Master noted a dry bloodstain there, soaked into the stone, thick as rot.

The men stopped before the large double doors. In this room they would find the peak of their victory. Sidious turned to look at the younger man, seeing the schooled expression upon the fair-skinned face, an expression which could not quite hide the anticipation in Vader's gleaming blue eyes.

Removing his hand from the side wall, Sidious opened the doors. A screaming gust of power swept over them. It scratched urgently at their minds, cursing at them, pleading with them, damning them. The utter fury of the storm was enough to nearly knock them to the floor, and sheer determination and absolute belief in their own superiority were all that kept them on their feet.

Inevitably, the storm died, and Master and Apprentice opened their eyes to behold the gutted centre of Jedi rule. Patches of the windows were smashed in and shards of transparasteel lay scattered on the cracked and heaving floor. The Council seats were broken wood and stone, their cushions torn apart and burned. The beautifully carved ceiling supporting the base of the Temple spire barely held together. Its decorative mosaics had been scorched away, and black carbon scoring mirrored the fire-kissed floor below. The grime of ashes and the stench of charred flesh filled the air. Brown blood filled in the cracks of the floor and the rotting bodies of the council members lingered in their seats, long after they had been abruptly discharged from their duties.

Darth Sidious walked slowly about the rim of the room's inner circle, absorbing the shattered inner sanctum of the Council.

"For twenty centuries, the Sith have awaited this moment," Lord Sidious whispered in his deep, crawling voice. "Masters and apprentices have trained and waited, using the Jedi virtue of patience in order to plan the Jedi's destruction. More than two thousand years, Lord Vader. Two thousand years of hate and thwarted ambition, while the Jedi sat blind and oblivious and sinking ever more deeply into putrid stagnation. At last we have arisen to take our rightful victory, our hard earned triumph! The Jedi Temple is broken, a shell of its former self. There remains not one initiate, Padawan, Knight or Master alive within this building, nor on all of Coruscant. The galaxy has turned against their wretched Order, as it was once turned against the Sith. Poetic justice."

Sidious bared his yellowed teeth in a vicious grin. The Sith Master felt bubbling excitement seething in his chest, and he was almost shaking with the emotional overload of the moment. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to kill. He'd paid the price of Darkness all of his life, the consuming hatred and rage that tormented his every moment, the ecstasy of the Force that shattered its user so minutely that it became agony, and the helpless futility of knowing that he must wait. That most of all—knowing that he could do nothing lest he risk exposure, even while his hunger for violence gnawed at his breast. But the price had at last revealed its prize, his purchase of all of those yearning years. It was a prize won at the cost of a portion of his sanity, but the sacrifice no longer mattered—not now that he had his victory.

A beam of light hit Sidious with the force of the setting sun, illuminating his face in blood-red light. A gust of wind howled past the Spire, shrieking into the smashed windows, pushing into Sidious, nearly knocking him to the floor, and sending Vader's tall form swaying sharply.

The wind intensified.

"Our time here is finished, my friend," Sidious decided. Gesturing sharply, he exited the chamber.

Vader followed.

Closing the resistant doors with the Force, the two Sith noted the abrupt disappearance of the wind's howl as the sound-proof doors sealed once more.

"Vader?" Sidious questioned with glassy calm as they stood in the hallway.

"Yes, my master?"

"Turn to me," Sidious ordered.

Puzzled, Vader did so. His face asked a question.

Sidious said nothing as his hand snaked up about Vader's neck, pulling his face down sharply to Sidious before the Sith Master covered the younger man's mouth with his own lips. Vader's eyes widened abruptly, but he did not attempt to pull away, even as his Master's tongue slid, swiftly but forcefully, into his mouth. His breath caught in his lungs as he felt Sidious smile around the kiss. The Sith Master abruptly pressed closely, turning the frozen pressure into a streak of violence as he scraped open his apprentice's lips with a hard grinding motion of his own. Vader tensed, but Sidious held him still for the moment, pulling back only slowly, several heart beats passing. A cruel and gloating smile lingered upon the Sith Master's lips, now slightly wet with Vader's blood. The younger Sith's eyes wandered to the red stain in trapped fascination, even as he licked the traces of blood from his own lips. Silence hung heavily between the Sith, but the desecrated height of Jedi might expressed its revulsion in subtle vibrations.

"Why?" Vader intended his voice to be demanding, incredulous, and certainly he meant to say more, but instead the word emerged warily, expectantly. He found that he was almost trembling with the dark tension. His Master's actions had been most unexpected.

"It seemed fitting," Sidious said. "One final taunt. We can do anything in the Temple or to the Temple, and there is not a single Jedi, dead or alive, who can stop us. Vader -- I have decided that my Palace will be built on this location. The Temple will be demolished, cleared away, and the centre of Imperial might will rise from the Knighthood's foundations."

To himself, Sidious gave another, silent answer: _And because you are mine, I may do with you as I wish, and I wished to kiss you as I did. But it's best not to say so for now. You serve willingly, but your pride is a most... volatile quality. I will gradually break you to my will, until you are utterly and completely a creature of my making. And then it will not matter what I say or do. You will never question. But these matters are best taken slowly to achieve the best result. _

"A...fitting plan," Vader noted. The younger man's blue eyes glinted unfathomably.

His Master laughed hoarsely. "Come, Vader. It is time to leave."

Sidious' cloak flared briefly as he turned, and they took the stairs in silence.

_fin_


End file.
